Farmers raise crops of various kinds including hay, alfalfa, and cotton that are baled for storage, handling, and transportation. The bales usually bind the dried crops, such as hay, into a stacked form such as a rectangle or a round cylinder. Bales are generally made by a machine towed, or propelled, by the farmer at the time of harvesting the crop, such as hay in the summer. Hay, once baled, is used as feed for livestock. The hay bales can be loaded and transported for various uses and to many locations.
Round bales have seen increasing usage over the years. The round bales are formed from hay, or another crop, are collected in windrows and then rolled into a cylinder with flat ends by machine. The cylinders are then spaced along the path of travel of a baling machine, often towed behind a tractor. A farmer can leave the bales in place until needed or the farmer can move the bales. Bales can be collected and stored for the farmer's own use or sold to other users of the bales. However, a round bale can weigh upwards of 1500 pounds.
Generally bales are moved using forklifts, cranes, and other material handling equipment. Such equipment though has proven expensive to members of the farming community and less suited to rugged conditions encountered in the fields. Farmers seek to utilize equipment adept on fields and rugged locales in new ways. Such equipment includes the skid steer loader. Farmers use skid steer loaders for a whole host of activities limited only by the attachments available. Generally skid steer loaders have a chassis with a roll cage to protect the farmer. Upon the chassis, the farmer sits in the seat with the engine and the fuel tank behind the farmer. The wheels, or sometimes treads, are beside the seat and the hydraulic arms extend from the chassis near the engine, along side the roll cage, and in front of the roll cage. In usage, the farmer sits in the skid steer loader to operate it and watches the hydraulic arms lift and manipulate load in front of the farmer. Over the years, various manufacturers have made devices that attach to the arms of a skid steer loader. The devices include post hole diggers, hydraulic picks and hammers, hydraulic saws, fork lifts, lift baskets, buckets, snowplows, rotary brushes, and a whole host of others. The various devices attach to the arms using a common plate and hook across the arms and nearby hydraulic fitting. The common plate and hooks are now known as the Universal Skid Steer Quick Attach.
Though skid steer loaders are adept and versatile equipment on farms, farmers and ranchers still use tractors for various tasks. Tractors and skid steer loaders have bucket attachments upon the front. The bucket generally scoops up material and lifts it to a higher height, often for dumping into a pile or onto a truck. As a lifting attachment, buckets can also move bales placed inside them by farm hands. Buckets attach to the arms of tractor using pins following the tractor manufacturer's layout of the arms and arrangement of connectors. With many tractor manufacturers selling tractors, variations in connections have occurred. Device manufacturers thus make versions of the same device suitable for connection to different makes of tractor. In recent years however, farm tractor and front loader manufacturers reached agreement to standardized how devices would connect to the lifting arms of tractors. On tractors having 80 horsepower (hp) or less the farm tractor and front loader manufacturers adopted the Universal Skid Steer Quick Attach as a standard for the products of their industries. On tractors above 80 hp, the manufacturers use a European design known as Euro or Global type attachment. Manufacturers can now make devices that fit both tractors and skid steer loaders without individual models for brands.
One of the devices that manufacturers have produced over the years is a bale spear. The bale spear can be attached to a skid steer loader or a tractor and is used to spear a bale of hay to lift the bale and move the bale to a different location. The bale spear typically has one or more spears that are connected to a base plate or attachment frame. One problem associated with the bale spear is that when being transported the spear is subject to being lost. For example, bale spears may be shipped in which the attachment frames are placed on one pallet and the spears are placed on a different pallet. During shipping, steel banding holding the spears on the pallet may come lose and the spears may be lost. Another problem is that a large order of bale spears requires that the correct number of spears be shipped. In particular, some bale spears have one spear and other bale spears have two or more spears. As can be appreciated, the correct number of spears must be shipped with the different attachment frames. If the incorrect number is shipped then a customer may have to wait for one or more spears to be shipped.
The present disclosure is designed to obviate and overcome many of the disadvantages and shortcomings experienced with prior bale spear devices. Moreover, the present disclosure is related to a bale spear device that incorporates a storage device for transporting the bale spear device. Also, it would be advantageous to have a bale spear device that stores the correct number of spears.